


Not fazed

by Seaside_Dreaming



Series: Thawing Out [1]
Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Angst, Character Study, Hurt No Comfort, I'm also prepared for his situation to be taken as seriously as it deserves to be, I'm prepared for canon to make me look like a fool, Literally just a character study on the parts that hurt, M/M, Mentioned Valentino (Hazbin Hotel), Vox ain't havin' a great time, and getting all of my feelings hurt, someone help him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26911702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seaside_Dreaming/pseuds/Seaside_Dreaming
Summary: Ratings and shock value are more important to Vox than his own well-being. Broken screens are a small price to pay for it. He can leave Valentino whenever he wants to. Totally.
Relationships: Valentino/Vox (Hazbin Hotel)
Series: Thawing Out [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2170974
Comments: 5
Kudos: 98





	Not fazed

**Author's Note:**

> Appreciation for Vox kind of abruptly smacked me in the face so here's, uh, this.  
> Written for a dear friend who more or less brought him to my attention and has been yelling to me about the angst potential here for about a week.
> 
> Based on the recurring trend on Instagram where he keeps getting his screen broken. I imagine it's a bit counterintuitive for a big bad Overlord to be showing off a fairly obvious weak spot, so I wanted to look into the potential reasons why.
> 
> (I also know he can actually eat and all that, but I love exploring the idea of a slightly-more-mechanical-than-organic Vox.)

The problem with Hell was that no one cared about anyone but themselves. The tried and true and _tired_ method was and always had been _Every demon for himself._ No one expected any differently, no one necessarily _needed_ any differently.

_Wanted,_ though.

Wanted any differently, wanted sincerity or even a fraction of sympathy—Now that, _that,_ he wondered about.

As though to mock a silence so heavy one could hear a pin drop, instead what is heard is the faint pitter of tiny glass fragments falling.

Vox certainly didn’t need help picking up glass shards from the floor. Certainly didn’t _need_ anyone to see him like this.

It’s not the first time this month his screen has been shattered, and judging from the mood Valentino has been in, he accepts it likely isn’t going to be the last.

Not that anyone is keeping count.

The initial shock that comes with a busted screen had dimmed the building, if not completely stripped the block of power. That shock had given way to adrenaline-fueled shivers and belated self-criticism, if not loathing. He should’ve expected this. He shouldn’t be surprised anymore when it happens. The price of his own naivety should not be a block or city-wide blackout. 

If called out on it, he’ll blame it on fury, claim it was intentional, claim it was meant as a way to get back at that _rat._ Can’t brag about breaking in his own _“boyfriend”_ ’s face if he doesn’t have wifi.

Vox glances down to the shards collected in his palm. What’s left of his ruined screen is the only source of light now, dim and occasionally flickering. His expression, or at least all that can still be seen, is weary and contemplative. The space where his wider, more expressive left eye should be, has been smashed in and fallen loose. He traces his free hand over the jagged edges, feels how the empty, blackened space fractures outward into an ugly spiderweb of splinters. 

It’s painful, but he’s always done a good job of pretending it isn’t. 

The TV demon draws in a breath, allows his wrist to lay limp across his thigh, allows himself a moment to simmer in the silent dark. 

He wonders what it’s like not to pretend. 

A social media post about his current predicament has already been sent out, his complaints already aired to an unsympathetic public: _Time to get a new screen._ It’s routine by now. The shop—his own—is on speed-dial for same-night delivery. 

Overhead, the lights pop and flicker. Once, twice, silence.

_It’s all for entertainment purposes,_ he reminds himself. _People like a good laugh._

It keeps him relevant. His partnership with Valentino had initially just been for clout. Still mostly is. No one is here to make friends. In Hell, it’s easier to base decisions purely off of garnering influence, amassing power, satisfying carnal desire. He wouldn’t be half as interesting or relevant if not for Valentino.

The lights have to come back on at some point. 

He urges himself to calm down, urges himself not to care. Gradually, the lights fizz and wake up with a low hum. It’s his job to keep a level head—Even when it’s broken to pieces. He isn’t fazed, he reminds himself. It’s for the attention, the shock value, the relevancy.

When did he become the butt of the joke?

_Can't laugh at me if I beat you to it._

Vox lowers the hand filled with glass shards of himself and sighs. His posture is slouched, his shoulders sag. He’s tired, _tired,_ pained and half blind. He can feel every edge of his broken screen as though they were knives in his skull if he still had one. The makeshift headache is enough to slow his thoughts to nothing but a muddy haze. There’s pressure behind his remaining eye; he’d pinch the bridge of his nose if he had one.

He squints and grimaces at the returning brightness of the room, considers whether or not it’s worth keeping the lights on. Electricity for everyone _else,_ certainly, but it hurts no one if he stumbles to the light switch and flicks it harshly off for just his room. And he does. The shed fragments of his screen are tipped from his hand into the nearby bin.

He isn’t fazed. 

Vox drags his feet back across the room, doffs his coat carelessly, lets it stay crumpled on the floor wherever it lands as he goes.

Isn’t.

The block of Pentagram City his penthouse windows overlook is alight and glittering beneath him now. The rest of the demons have already moved on with their afterlives. His phone is equally alight with notifications of jeers and jests at his own broadcasted misfortune. Every ping makes his head ache.

**Isn’t.**

He lets himself lie on his back in the dark. The bed is cold and empty, but there’s little else to be done while he waits for the delivery of his new screen. There’s nothing to be so upset or angry or miserable about. He chose this. That’s why he puts up with it, naturally; it’s all just for show. Just for show, just for entertainment, just part of the job, _that’s showbiz, baby._

The pain gnaws at him. Vox lays an arm over the intact side of his face and sighs, long, anguished, staticky, through his teeth. A spark pops from the damaged side as he wills himself to relax. The other hand finds its way to his middle and rests atop it in an absent attempt to soothe his roiling stomach. To still have the ability to feel nauseous despite the inability to eat is one of the more bafflingly impractical things about him, but he is long past the days of questioning his demon biology. If anything, he chalks it up to to another useless layer of Hell’s punishment. Yet trying to relax with a pounding headache and a stomach doing flips, he finds, is about as much of a joke as he is.

He isn’t fazed, he reminds himself. He can take care of himself. He’s an adult, after all. An Overlord, no less. 

He could wriggle out from under Valentino’s thumb any time he so pleased, surely. Most definitely. 

The _ratings_ simply haven’t shown it’s worth cutting the rat loose yet. That’s all.

That’s all. 

Vox’s screen goes dark. There’s a pitiful rattle from somewhere inside that mechanical head of his, and his chest caves. There’s no use broadcasting his crumpled expression to a dark, empty room. Using his own suffering for shock value and relevancy only goes so far. It’s only funny until it’s sad, and right now, he isn’t sure which it is.

_Cut, end scene._

Hell and its inhabitants go about their afterlives while he lies still as a board in the dark. Vox isn’t aware of how much time has passed, if he’s fallen asleep at all. He knows it’s pathetic, though—an Overlord, moping about like this? For what? Because his plan for clout backfired for about the third time this month? 

Maybe if it was the fourth time, the public would be amused.

Maybe they’re already growing bored of it. 

He’s compelled to check. It’s like a crude injury, a morbid crash, an abrupt explosion. It’s awful, he knows; he won’t—can’t—look away.

Vox's damaged screen wakes from its muted-but-not-powered-off black, and his fragmented expression returns, greeting the ceiling above him with a pained scowl. Three things are brought to his attention all at once: How his pain ebbs and crashes like sadistic waves, how the silence has dug its claws into and clearly unsettled him, and how acutely aware he is of his own loneliness. 

He has long since willed his phone into muting any notifications from social media, effectively freeing it up exclusively to the delivery demon, or, Satan forbid, Valentino’s after-fight parting shots, if not direct text messages from anyone else.

It is remarkably silent. 

Remarkably telling.

He dares to sit up; the action alone is enough to increase the pressure behind his eye threefold. Dares to check his phone manually; even on the lowest setting, the light makes him squint harshly. Five minutes of sifting through useless _‘Likes’_ and _‘Favourites’_ and commentary from faceless nobodies mocking him for his carelessness, idiocy, and their general disrespect, is all he needs to confirm there’s nothing from anyone noteworthy. No one asking after him, no Velvet bothering to get involved, no Valentino offering up apologies. 

Wishful thinking. 

Vox wonders why he doesn't just pull the plug early, why he doesn't get up and leave, why he doesn't _fight back_ at the very least. The TV demon can think up a hundred excuses, but not a one logical reason.

He considers lying back down, considers sleeping it all off and not bothering with the world again until there’s a knock at his door. He does, at some point, and much to his own surprise, find himself horizontal again, staring absently at the ceiling. If it isn’t preoccupied with assessing the waves of pain making it hard for him to simply exist, his head is busy with things he would rather not think about.

When did things change? When was it not enough just to see the numbers of ‘Likes’ gradually climb? Since when did he begin caring so much about what others thought—if _they_ cared? He’s been posting less. It’s rarely about himself at its core when he finally does, these days. 

Since when was his existence so intrinsically tied to Valentino’s?

_Why is the idea of his absence so unsettling?_

A sickening spiral of vertigo washes over him. For the second time tonight, Vox’s grip on the waking world slips. 

Hours pass, maybe. _Who's counting?_ His heart damn near bursts with a jolt of anxiety when he hears a loud thump at the door. He sits up more quickly than his systems can handle, and he just about tips too far and face-plants back into the bed. Valentino? Round two?—Just a delivery imp. 

By the time Vox reaches the door, his expression is a brightly lit, dangerous, expectant grin, devoid of any previous vulnerabilities. 

He isn’t fazed, after all. It’s just an act, a ploy, it’s _ratings._

If he tells himself that enough, maybe the next time won’t hurt as much.


End file.
